Every three years this thing happens. It's like a salesman storing his car for a couple of months when he desperately needs it for calls; or like being hospitalized for an equal period and finding out you are all right later.

This thing is called an auto strike.

Those directly affected arc the 159,800 Ford Motor Co. workers (who voted to strike) at 93 plants in 25 states. It also quite directly affects thousands of work­ers employed by Ford's 25,000 suppliers; also Ford's dealers who only had about a two month supply of cars as the strike started. In addition, it reaches into every American community; in some way all are, at least, partially dependent on automakers continuing in the car marketing business.

It is true that you and I cannot have the opportunity to sit in at that conference table in Detroit to under­stand the demands and the offers as they are presented. But enough of the factual reports arc available to lead an interested businessman to wonder about the sheer economics of actually striking.

While collective bargaining has indeed proven to be a necessary force developed in history when it was needed, it is difficult for me to imagine grown, mature and professional men perpetrating this costly action that so adversely affects so many innocent individuals. In my opinion it is downright selfish.

Ford has offered, in its original package, wage in­creases of 13 cents per hour for the first year; a 4.1 percent increase. Over three years, Ford says that wages would be up a minimum of 34 cents per hour; and as high as 50.5 cents per hour for some workers. In addition the company offered to give skilled work­ers an unspecified special pay boost, improve pensions and other employee fringe benefits and offered the "continued protection of the cost-of-living allowance."

Now compare this with the reports that we have out of Detroit that encompass the UAW's original demands that add up to an estimated cost of at least $4 an hour. The demands include a $5.66 minimum hourly rate for workers in skilled classifications or a $1.20 increase for one, year over the average rate of most of the 6,000 UAW members in the job shops. Also the union is basically asking for a guaranteed monthly income for younger union members and a guaranteed annual in­come for workers with higher seniority.

While we are talking specifically about the econom­ics of this situation, Ford workers are losing $5 million in wages every day of the strike. But the UAW has stashed away some $67 million in their strike fund so that they can assist the average union worker during the strike with $30 per week; this drains off about $4 million a week out of that fund.

With all these millions of dollars being expended it just seems a little difficult for me to believe that a proper perspective by the UAW leaders could avert the problems we are now faced with in our nation; and the compromise, that will be arrived at, as it al­ways is, will never make up for the loss of dollars.

How much better it would be to use that strike fund for some real humanitarian benefits in our nation and settle with an acceptable compromise without inter­ruption for everyone involved.

In looking at just a few of the other UAW demands I was interested in a few that were presented to GM. They include prepaid dental care, company-paid pre­scription drugs and doctor bills, along with a profit share from plant vending machines. I wonder what LBJ and his Medicare proponents and the "cradle-to-the-grave" social security legislators would say about those demands.

Right now the strike against Ford looks even longer and more devastating in effect than anyone really ex­pected. And the word on the street is that the UAW definitely intends to be as stiff on non-economic de­mands at GM after the Ford settlement.

Surely with all the bright lads coming out of post ­grad schools, someone should be able to come up with a better solution for more effective collective bargain­ing by mature, professional people to avoid the rub­bers strikes, the train strikes, the...